As an 82-year-old pensioner with a knee replacement and a tremor, Derek Norman does not look like the typical leader of a national resistance organisation.

But Mr Norman is still active in a campaign against metric road signs and travels the country altering or removing the signs which he believes are not legal because the regulations say distance signs must be in miles and yards.

The organisation he co-founded, Active Resistance to Metrication, has now changed or removed 2,000 signs which gave distances in kilometres and metres.

Mr Norman, a retired electrical engineer and lecturer, also supports a campaign to retain traditional weight measurements in pounds and ounces.

He believes that the Brexit decision could bring back the right to use imperial measurements rather than metric.

Mr Norman, who is also a UKIP activist, said: “I’m 82 now and when I go out to the signs I hold the ladder and pass up the stickers because at my age my sense of balance is not so good.”

He said he did not have anything against metric measurements and uses them himself but did not like having the system imposed on the UK by the EU.

This led to the creation of Active Resistance to Metrication, which he chairs.

“It is part of our tradition and heritage. I don’t see why you shouldn’t be ably to buy a pound of cherries or a piece of steak,” Mr Norman said.

“As an electrical engineer I was quite happy to use metric units for physics, chemistry or science but I do not see why they should make our everyday life metric.

“I think it is a question of freedom of choice to use what we want.”

His first taste of guerilla action came in 2000 when the group removed six signs in Northamptonshire and put them in a ditch.

“If we then tell the council where we have put them we cannot be accused of stealing,” he said.

Mr Norman said a court case had ruled that the signs had to be in miles and yards to be legal.

He said most drivers preferred road signs to be in easily understood miles.

The small group has a supply of letters – which meet regulations – to cover up metric measurements on signs which could say that a junction was 100m away. They will also remove signs they cannot change.

Mr Norman said: “We have what we call spotters all over the country who tell us about the signs.

“There are some in Scotland but we haven’t got a lot of money at the moment and it depends on how much money we have as to whether we would be able to do them.”

Mr Norman blames former Prime Minister Ted Heath for taking the UK into the Common Market and giving away our independence.

He said the cost of converting to metric measurement had cost the UK billions of pounds and did not expect to see this reversed formally.

Mr Norman, who was stunned by the Brexit result, said: “I think it will be left as it is because science and manufacturing are using metric measurements but it could bring a freedom of choice.”